28 Ii c-fð? I HE 1HEÄJR,E ,...'" T . !; , ,,, ; I · :t .. , Ì .::' .' é 'o .--:'\"= -- ...... r. . - "'" \ 7 00 . .. "'A/ \ o ' .f f _ tiJ ,fÞ $ ! .j )\;:.;J' ON THE. CUFF A HUNDRED brummagem hotels line the streets that lead off from Times Square. These places are large and small; they are modern in the sense that they gleam angrily with chromium and neon lights, and they are moldering away into dust and cracked plaster. They have, in fact, nothing in common except a cer- tain quality that may be perceived in man y of their clients-an extra gloss and tightness in the dress, an air that is at the same time apprehensive and strangely knowing. The innocent and respectable citizen, passing one of these hotels, usually wonders briefly what goes on behind its cryptic exterior. In a play called "Room Service," now and presumably forever at the Cort, George Abbott and his attendant gnomes have eXplained about that, and incidentally given us a farce that can be remem- bered affectionately along with "Three Men on a Horse" and similar i\.bbott miracles. The hotel imagined by the authors, John Murray and Allen Boretz, is called the White Way, and it is easy to believe that it is the final essence of Broadway. The management and the guests are sharp cari- catures of the strange young men who stand forever examining their fingernails in front of Forty-second Street cigar stores, or can be dimly seen in adjacent lobbies argu- ing passionately about nothing whatever. I don't know anything of the young man- hood of either Mr. Murray or Mr. Bor- l- )e <I'" etz, but it is hard to understand how they could have been so in- formed about the ways of the habitually bankrupt unless they, too, had known their discouraging moments. It is fortunate that farce is largely exempt from logic, because I don't be- lieve that even Mr. i\.bbott could ex- plain much that goes on at the Cort. There is a shoestring producer, played by Sam Levene, who can portray the dramatic anguish of his race more terri- ----- v bly than any other man alive, and lurk- ing somewhere about the White Way is his troupe of twenty-two, al1 identi- cally penniless. Very few of these peo- ple ever appear on the stage; they exist only as the rumor of a sad and perse- cuted tribe, sometimes driven from the dining room in the middle of a meal, sometimes sleeping in an unused audi- torium and sometimes in one of the ball- rooms. There was, incidentally, some misgiving about this last arrangement. " s h " uppose t e manager comes, sug- gested the director nervously. "] ust tell them to qegin dancing," said :\1r. Levene, his active mind al- ready on something else. The story, as much as you need to know about it, has to do with an inno- cent playwright from Oswego who has come to New York to see Mr. Levene's production of his fantasy, which is called "Godspeed" and is provocatively described from time to time as a panorama of American life as seen through the eyes of a Polish miner. Beyond that, for me, almost everything is confusion-a succession of lovely but barely related episodes. I like to think, for instance, of the magic moment when t is necessary for the play- / J wright to pretend he ,/ // is dead. i\.s he lies there, covered with a sheet, and with the wreath marked "Suc- cess" which was to have decorated the opening of his play lying ironically on his stomach, his associates sing "i\.bide with Me," and as that dies away, one of them murmurs brokenly, "Goodbye, sweet prince." There has been no more affecting deathbed since Little Eva's. It is also pleasant to re- member Philip Loeb, who has a strong sentimental attachment for a moose's head and two stuffed owls, and takes them with him wherever he goes. The play is instructive, too, and someday it may be useful for you to know that a man can put on three suits, one on top of the other, and so get hIs wardrobe out \ , \ I i , J i\1 . . ' of a hotel without having to bother about the bill. I suppose that to some extent "Room Service" can be compared with "You Can't Take It with You" in that each deals with a small group of people of staggering peculiarity. The difference, f 0 h " R S ." o course, IS t at oom erVIce pre- sents the logical extension of actual types, while the family created by Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Hart sprang in pure form from its authors' imaginations. It is one symptom of a bilious temper that I prefer satire to fantasy, however lit- erate, and while "You Can't Take It with You" is probably madder and cer- tainly more charming, it seems to me that "Room Service" is just a little bit funnier. In addition to Mr. Loeb and Mr. Levene, the cast at the Cort includes Teddy Hart, Cliff Dunstan, Eddie Al- bert, Donald MacBride, and Alexander i\.sro. Almost all of these gifted people have worked with Mr. .L.L\.bbott before, and there is not one of them I could bear to see changed. Good as they are, though, most of the credit for a superb performance must go to Mr. .L.L\.hbott himself, whose direction, for want of a stronger word, I must describe as flaw- less. " S EA LEGS," at the Mansfield, is a mild, innocent, rather simple- minded musical comedy, not very long, I'm afraid, for a cynical world. The action (a word originating with the theatre program, not me) takes place on the yacht Pixie, and deals with a young man who, for roman tic purposes, has to make believe he is a veterinarian. Several nice people, particularly Dorothy Stone, Charles Collins, Walter Greaza, and Charles King, wrestle spiritedly with this unpromising thesis, and their fail- ure is a matter for sympathy and re- gret. Among the supernumeraries, in- cidentally, are a danseuse who prefers to be known simply as Deedee, and Mr. Rasco .L.L\.tes, who has enchanted mil- lions on the screen simply hy stuttering, a talent that is perhaps not quite so well suited to a more intimate medium. J\L THOUGH it had been hope- fl.. fully advertised as "especially timely at the moment," the revival of "Damaged Goods," at the Forty-eighth Street Theatre, only made me wonder . " Th Ch o ld ' H ". how quaInt e 1 ren s our IS going to seem to the bright young peo- ple of 1960. This, however, may not be entirely fair to Eugène Brieux's pre- war hair-raiser, which got very little help from its cast and none whatever from its direction. _\\10 L CO'I'T GIBBS